“Generous orthodoxy” I am intrigued when people in my camp come up with creative terms in order to suffice their lack of scripture and replace it with strawmans. It reminds me when President Bush’s campaign came up with “compassionate conservatism”
Exuse me sir but I believe that Jesus was teaching all of humanity how to be their own gods and that we are all good and don’t need salvation. I also believe from scripture that Jesus was not virgin born but in fact was a visitor from outter space who had relations with many women he never married and later had a family. Will you allow me that grace of differ sir? I mean you said, only Christ saves and not perfect doctrine-Wait! your a Calvinist what about sola fide? and oh by the way I don’t believe that ONLY Christ saves therefore I am a Christian, right I mean just how wide is your “grace of differ” Where will it end or does it?
When you go against scripture you always end up looking like an illogical hypocrite. God Bless!
If the president is a calvinist as he claims and Rob Bell is teaching falsehoods about God then he can only see that as slander regardless if Rob Bell’s intent.
How else could he perceive it if he believes Rob Bell is changing the character and nature of God?
I know he isn’t and that’s the problem because if he truly is a calvinist then that’s how he would perceive Rob Bell.
I see your point about intent but it changes nothing as it is still spreading falsehoods about God. This isn’t a disagreement over water baptism, this is recognized as heresy in our own camp and he has a responsibility as a shepherd to the sheep furthermore I don’t know Rob Bell’s heart, maybe he is doing it to undermine mainstream Christianity but regardless that is exactly what he is doing in our camp
This is not about universalism. This about an individual who claims to be in our camp but teaches a different gospel. It’s equivalent to a person in your camp teaching what you perceive to be eternal damnation and when confronted the individual says, that is not what I am doing when it clear that they are. How would you react?
If the president is a true Calvinist I do, yes.
(Galatians 1:9)
As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
If the president actually believes this verse then either Rob Bell is the believer and the president isn’t or vise versa but both can’t be believers because they have two different gospels.
Again he is not refuting the prosperity gospel but heresy. If he sees Rob as a wolf like any Calvinist would then anything less than “WOLF!” “BEWARE!” “RUN!” is ambiguous.
“Defective theology”…no…no…no…My Jehovah Witness friend has a defective theology. It’s one thing to believe in a defective theology in ignorance but when you knowingly reject the truth is a different matter entirely.
This is a fallacy of equiovocation. We are not debating bad theology, not even abhorrent teaching but full blown heresy-a totally different gospel (let’s get this straight) that changes the character and nature of God in undermining the gospel and this is being done inside our camp among our sheep. I very much doubt Charles Spurgeon would have tolerated that or wrote that letter Mouw did.
(Galatians 1:9)
As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
What pray tell, is this grievous heretical “other gospel” that Rob Bell is preaching? You have yet to mention specifically what that might be as far as I have been able to find, and if you have mentioned it previously then please do me the honourable and Christlike service of presenting it again to me here in plain and simple words so I might yet understand why you are howling and baring your canines so much.
Is it (the other gospel) that Love Wins? Or rather - this thing called universal salvation? I feel certain enough that it is probably so - but I want to read it directly from your own posts; I want to see what it is exactly that you are calling “other gospel”.
Also, as a post script…I’m still waiting for you to answer my question. It is exceedingly important to the both of us that you do.
It changes the charge from slander to a different category of error. Dr. M is very specific about believing Rob in error, and on what points. He does not believe Rob is committing slander.
And when Dr. M talks about generous orthodoxy, he means such things as being able to distinguish between slander and other kinds of error; and being willing to hope in favor of the latter rather than to insist first of all on the former. He also apparently means looking for places to agree with and meet his opponents on. He very obviously and clearly does NOT mean that it doesn’t matter how the scriptures are interpreted, nor that anyone is free to interpret them any way they want with equivalence between results.
Obviously you disagree with the president over whether Rob is preaching a gospel contrary to what was received. But the end result is that you’re going to end up calling major Calv teaching authorities “accursed” because they accepted that other people whom they greatly disagreed with nevertheless were trusting in Christ to save them from their sins and so in fact were Christians saved by grace (despite their doctrinal errors).
And, incidentally, Rob pretty clearly passes the Gal 1:9 anathema. He preaches salvation from sin in Christ, by Christ (Who gives Himself for our sins so that He might extricate us out of the present wicked age), to faith in Christ, not by works but by the grace of Christ; and preaches the resurrection of Christ out from among the dead. I am pretty sure he even repeatedly affirms that, in effect, “he who sows into his own flesh out of the flesh shall be reaping corruption, yet the one who is sowing into the Spirit out from the Spirit shall be reaping life eonian.” But this could be multiplied at length.
The only material difference is that Rob regards the scope and persistence of the gospel of Christ, of salvation from sin in Christ, and by Christ, to be greater than you do (and that you, and Dr. M for that matter, believe Paul and more importantly God does.)
If Rob is wrong it is because he has gone too far in having too much gospel. But that isn’t the same thing as preaching a different gospel.
Dr. M obviously believes Rob goes too far with the scope (and maybe with the persistence!) But he does see that, if Rob is going too far, it is too far in regard to the same gospel. Rob isn’t preaching salvation from something other than sin (such as a proponent of the “prosperity gospel” would!); isn’t preaching salvation by works (not even by the work of doctrinal belief); isn’t preaching salvation by anyone other than Christ alone (or rather by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit); isn’t preaching Christ (nor the Father nor the Spirit) as some lesser lord or god. Those kinds of things would involve a different gospel–in which case the scope and/or persistence of such a different gospel would be completely beside the point.
I think it’s kind of bizarre that you would allow the so-called “prosperity gospel”, which isn’t primarily about salvation from sin at all, to get a pass, but when it comes to the salvation of all sinners from sin by Christ you expect a “true Calvinist” to cry “WOLF! BEWARE! RUN!” at that. I could see the former being a wolf, since it distracts people from salvation from sin; at worst the latter gives the people God has chosen to be non-elected for salvation from sin, hope of salvation from their sin in repentance to Christ, by Christ and for Christ.
That may be wrong, but it’s the same gospel of salvation from sin by Christ wrongfully preached to those hopelessly non-elected to salvation from their sins after all.
Meaning… you have hope for your Jehovah Witness friend, but none for Barth and Schliermacher, therefore Hodge and Van Till (of all people), who did see that such people in fact had faith in Christ for salvation from their sins, must not therefore have been true Calvinists? Or maybe they were true Calvinists but also cowardly and false Calvinists for daring to believe that Barth and Schliermacher were actually (despite their theological errors) faithful Christians?
I think it’s kind of amusing when someone who punts logic the moment it seems to conflict with his own theological beliefs, tries to throw around fallacy charges. But at any rate Dr. M brought Hodge and Van Till into the conversation to parallel, in what they did with their opponents, with how he has chosen to treat Rob Bell. The charge of fallacious equivocation can only stick under direct evidence that RB, Barth and Schliermacher are being falsely equivocated as deserving consideration under the same principle. Apparently the false equivalence would be that unlike Barth (who much like Bell arrived at a universal salvation from sin that he wasn’t comfortable calling universalism and publicly denied it being so) and unlike Schliermacher (the social justice evangelist whose liberal theology may have meandered away from trinitarian theism at all), Bell (the trinitarian theist preaching salvation from sin in and by Christ) is preaching a totally different gospel that changes the character and nature of God in undermining the gospel.
And he is so different from them… how, exactly? Because you certainly didn’t bother to say. (Other than to quote Gal 1:8 again. Which has nothing to do with rejecting the idea that God will persist in saving all people from sin through Christ.)
As of course the man chosen by Calvinists to be president of America’s premier Calvinist seminary must suffice with his lack of scripture.
Maybe you ought to be more intrigued than you obviously are.
But I expect that’s going to be difficult for you:
Which could only be true if, going with scripture (as you must necessarily be assuming the president of a Calvinist seminary must not be doing), you never end up looking illogical.
So in point of fact, you yourself don’t believe that we will be logical if we go by the scriptures. And your defense about Calvinist salvation being illogical (which by the way many Calvinist theologians would deny, insisting it is the most logical theology instead), even in the scriptures, is that you find plenty of other things you also think are illogical there, and since you believe in those things despite also believing them to be illogical (even in the scriptures), then hey, why not one more illogical thing, too?
But remember, when it’s time to deride someone for using the scriptures illogically, and so going against the scriptures: “When you go against scripture you always end up looking like an illogical hypocrite. God Bless! ”
At this point you might as well give up and go home. By punting logic whenever you think logic causes you trouble, the best you can do afterward is to illogically appeal to logic over against illogic whenever you think someone else punting logic will cause you trouble.
But unlike you, I don’t consider those other doctrines to be illogical. Sometimes paradoxical, but not illogical: paradoxes still make logical sense, which is how we distinguish paradoxes from contradictions (if we bother to try to distinguish the two notions at all.) They are not senseless. I deny they are senseless in metaphysical principle, and I deny they are senseless in scriptural practice.
On the contrary I constantly argue in favor of the logical sensibility of trinitarian theism (including the two-natures doctrine of Christ, fully God and fully Man); and I constantly argue in favor that scriptural testimony ends up logically pointing to that theology and not to any other.
So yes, I expect soteriology in particular to be as logical as theology in general. If it’s illogical, then I know I’m making a mistake somewhere and I ought to go back and fix it. Otherwise I could just as easily propose any illogical theology, and any illogical interpretation of scripture, that I felt emotionally like doing.
But that wouldn’t lead to truth, not about God and not about the scriptures. Those who refuse to have logic in their theology will not have the Logos either, and so will not have the Truth.
Consequently, when I arrive at a soteriology, I continue to reject what is illogical, and only accept what logically follows from previously established theology (which I find on examination to be trinitarian theism), and from scriptural testimony. Otherwise I am disrespecting the Truth (Who is God) and the Logos (Who is God).
You would do better to find Calvinist teachers (if there are any–and if not then that ought to be a huge clue!) who insist on being logical and not illogical in their theology including their interpretations of scripture.
But to seize at illogic when logic looks inconvenient, and then (illogically but consistently in its illogical way!) to seize at logic when illogic looks inconvenient, is the way of someone who cares about their own beliefs more than truth.
